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22 November 2017: The Budget 2017: Round Up

After the big reveal of the budget today, we’ve rounded up the main points you need to hear about, and how they will affect you…Housing

£44bn to support the housing market with some of the following actions…

Halving rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminating it by 2027

Stamp duty abolished for all first time buyers purchasing a home under £300,000

300,000 new homes per year being built on average by mid 2020s

Continued protection of the green belt

100,000 homes in Oxfordshire alone by 2031

£10bn more poured into Help to Buy equity loans

• Most of these factors point towards getting new buyers on the ladder, and will hopefully make it much more affordable to buy

Cars and Transport

£1.7bn to go into the transforming cities fund – mostly aiding public transport

New railcard for 26-30 year olds, saving 1/3 on rail fares

The fuel duty rise which was due in April 2018 has been cancelled, keeping costs down for motorists

No cost for charging electric cars at work

£220mil clean air fund

Existing diesel supplement in company car tax to rise by 1%

• The cancelled fuel duty rise has the biggest impact here, keeping costs from rising for the huge amount of motorists across the country. The railcard will also impact a significant amount of people, as this currently only stretches to those aged 25.

Economy and Tax

A pledge to have 600,000 more people in work by 2022

£49.9bn forecast for borrowing this year, then borrowing will fall every year of the forecast from here (debt to peak this year then fall as a share of GDP)

£3bn more to Brexit negotiations

4.4% rise in living wage

Tax-free personal allowance to rise to £11,850 in April 2018

Higher-rate tax threshold to increase to £46,350

£4.8bn to be raised by 2022 for new package of measures on tax evasions and avoidance

• With such a significant rise in the living wage, many people will be positively affected. The rising tax allowance also means less tax to pay on income for thousands of people, meaning an all-round ease of pressure off many people’s finances.

NHS and Health

£10bn investment in NHS to come

£2.8bn resource funding for NHS for immediate relief, with £350mil of that for immediate commitment for winter

£28mil for mental health and counselling services - for Kensington and Chelsea to help with Grenfell tower crisis

• The aid to the NHS will affect everyone, and will hopefully see an improvement to NHS services and make it more accessible to all.

Other

VAT refunds from April 2018 for Scottish police and fire services

Duty on beer, wine, spirits and most ciders will be frozen

Duty on high-strength “white ciders” to be increased

Tobacco will rise by two per cent above Retail Price Index (RPI) inflation while the minimum excise duty on cigarettes introduced in March will also rise, as will duty on hand-rolled tobacco

£20mil investment to support further education colleges

• Freezing of duty on most alcohol comes as a pleasant surprise for most, whilst the rise in duty on tobacco was expected. The investment to further education colleges again aims towards the younger generations, and makes education more accessible for many.